Crocodile Harry: The Man Who Inspired Crocodile Dundee

Arvid Blumenthal, also known as �Crocodile Harry� | � Ben Cooper / Flickr

UPDATED: 5 APRIL 2018

Every Australian knows Crocodile Dundee, but not many have heard of Crocodile
Harry. Meet Arvid Blumenthal, a Latvian-born solider who made a name for himself
hunting crocodiles, opals and underpants in the Australian outback.

Arvid Blumenthal, reportedly christened a baron, if you believe the first of his
many tall tales, was born in the medieval village Dundaga, Latvia, on March 19,
1925. In 1942, he joined the Nazi-occupied Latvian forces on the Eastern Front,
sustaining serious injuries and even being captured by American troops at one
stage. After the war, Arvid emigrated to Australia, again, forced to flee after
defecting if you listen to the protagonist himself, and took up an occupation that
was perhaps even more dangerous: hunting crocodiles.

Having arrived Down Under in 1951, he began poaching crocodiles in North Queensland
in 1956, recording his early expeditions in the books Latvian Crocodile Hunter in
Australia (1957) and Long after the Sun (1958). Legend has it that �Harry� killed
as many as 40,000 crocodiles throughout the Northern Territory and the Queensland
tropics to sell the flesh for cash over his two decade career, before giving up the
poaching game to retire to an underground cave in Central Australia.

Crocodile Dundee
Latvians who admire their countryman will proudly tell you that Arvid Blumenthal
provided the inspiration for Paul Hogan�s iconic Mick Dundee character in the
enormously successful Crocodile Dundee film franchise in the 1980s. Australians
who�ve done their research instead point to Rod Ansell, a croc poacher who made
global headlines (and piqued Hogan�s curiosity) in 1977 after surviving in the
remote Northern Territory bush with almost no supplies for 56 days. But, hey, let�s
not let the truth get in the way of Crocodile Harry�s claim to fame.

In any case, Crocodile Dundee isn�t his only brush with Hollywood. Harry�s
underground lair in Coober Pedy made an appearance in the 1985 film Mad Max Beyond
Thunderdome, another classic Australian flick from the mid-1980s that was primarily
shot in the remote Central Australian town.

Crocodile Harry�s Underground Nest

Coober Pedy bills itself as the �Opal Mining Capital of the World�, and Crocodile
Harry became Gemstone Harry when he moved there to fossick for opals in 1975.
Located 850km north of Adelaide in the barren outback, conditions are so harsh that
Coober Pedy�s buildings are carved into caves beneath the earth�s surface � and the
word �eccentric� doesn�t even begin to describe Harry�s underground lair.

The Latvian larrikin moved to Coober Pedy to gather opals but his abode is home to
a very different collection: the underwear of the women he has bedded over the
years, now hanging as trophies on the walls of the cave. Harry�s womanising was
legendary (well, that�s if you listen to Harry), and rumours swirl around this
outback oddball�one about a carving featuring his ex-wife and a chain, one about a
beer tap protruding from a certain part of a sculpture�s anatomy, one about a high-
profile recording artist who shall remain nameless, all sounding like the sort of
sleaze that�s got half of Hollywood into serious strife in recent months.

Harry�s legend grew throughout Europe thanks to appearances in dozens of

documentaries�including the 1995 documentary �Krokodilu Harijs� that cemented his
cult status in his homeland�as well as a mention in Lonely Planet�s Australia
guidebook. Growing numbers of visitors to his Coober Pedy home helped add to the
graffiti, trinkets and letters that adorn the walls, complementing the tasteless
sculptures that could only loosely be labelled �art�, and vulgar versions of the
female form that are too politically incorrect to describe in graphic detail in the
new millennium.

Plan your visit

Harry died in 2006 aged 80, but his spirit lives on in two ways: a crocodile statue
in his home town, and his underground home in Coober Pedy, which is now a museum to
one of the outback�s most colourful characters. Found six kilometres west of town
on the Seventeen Mile Road, Crocodile Harry�s Underground Nest is open every day
between 9am-12pm and 2pm-6pm, and the price of admission is a $7 contribution to an
�honesty box�.